New Rapidly-Growing IoT Botnet Threatens to Take Down the Internet

Just a year after Mirai—biggest IoT-based malware that caused vast Internet outages by launching massive DDoS attacks—completed its first anniversary, security researchers are now warning of a brand new rapidly growing IoT botnet.

Dubbed ‘IoT_reaper,’ first spotted in September by researchers at firm Qihoo 360, the new malware no longer depends on cracking weak passwords; instead, it exploits vulnerabilities in various IoT devices and enslaves them into a botnet network.

IoT_reaper malware currently includes exploits for nine previously disclosed vulnerabilities in IoT devices from following manufactures:

Dlink (routers)

Netgear (routers)

Linksys (routers)

Goahead (cameras)

JAWS (cameras)

AVTECH (cameras)

Vacron (NVR)

Researchers believe IoT_reaper malware has already infected nearly two million devices and growing continuously at an extraordinary rate of 10,000 new devices per day.